Item Detail
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Rea, Gladys Clark
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1910-2002
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MSS SC 1025
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Autobiography
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Gladys Clark Rea was born July 8, 1910 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia to Ethel Maud Westwood Clark and Charles Clark. In her early childhood, Gladys lived at Yergona in the suburbs of Brisbane. Then her family moved to Maryborough, where they lived for another two years. They moved back to Brisbane and Gladys graduated from high school there. During her last year of high school, Gladys became interested in different religions and started attending meetings of the New Apostolic Church with a friend. She said, 'I found them very friendly and kind, and as I was very lonely I joined and was baptized in a creek outside of Brisbane.' She enjoyed their association until she went to a meeting where members rolled on the ground and claimed to speak in tongues. She quit attending their meetings after this. A few months later she met her future husband, Royal McGregor Bannerman Rea, at her aunt's house where he was a visitor. They were attracted to each other immediately, but she did not see him for the next six months. During this time Royal met the Mormon Elders and was converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Gladys began attending church meetings with Royal and reading the Book of Mormon. When she told her family about this, she was surprised at their negative reaction, so she was baptized in 1928 without telling them. When they eventually found out Gladys had been baptized, they told her to give up the church or leave. She left and found work as a nurse, and then as a representative for Ladies Foundation Garments Firm, until her marriage to Royal in 1929. Gladys was not reconciled with her family for many years. Royal and Gladys lived in Brisbane for four years, and then Royal was transferred to Murgon to assist the Senior Telephone Technician there. They stayed there for three years, and then in 1938 decided to buy a 30-acre farm at Lower Tivoli near Ipswich. They made this decision because of the First Presidency's counsel for families to be self supporting, and because Royal came from a farming background and believed that a farm was the best place to rear a family. Of this move Gladys said, 'This was the changing point of my life [. . .] Having been city reared I was not prepared for what confronted me.' They raised their nine children on this farm and lived through WWII, several times of drought, and many technological changes. In 1954, they expanded their farm by buying 300 acres of land nearby that they used for grazing their herd of milking cows. 50 acres of this land were hilly and barren, and the family considered this waste land. But in 1959 a man came and told them that this land had good gravel for making roads, and asked if they would sell the gravel to the Shire Council. With the money from this sale, they were finally able to go to the New Zealand Temple in 1960 and be sealed together as a family. Gladys passed away on November 8, 2002.
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This collection was submitted for the Women's History Archives at Brigham Young University. It contains three photocopied pages of unlabeled photographs; 'The Story of My Life,' Gladys' 29-page, typewritten autobiography; two photocopied pages of handwritten material that are mostly unreadable; a six-page script of a play entitled 'The End of the Line'; and newspaper clippings relating to her husband's reenactment of a 450-mile expedition to construct a telegraph line in Queensland. Gladys' autobiography is divided up into these chapters: Early Years, Days of my Youth, Apostolic Other Church, When I First Heard the Gospel, How I Joined the Church, First Years of my Marriage and the Church, Experiences on the Farm, Drought, War Years, Faith Promoting Stories, Power of the Priesthood, Happy Days, Temple Visit Made Possible, Genealogy, Changes, Family, and In Retrospect. Gladys begins her autobiography by saying 'this is the most exciting and surprising thing I have ever been asked to do.' She then recounts her life experiences in a delightful writing style that captures her personality. For example, Gladys wrote of their first week on the farm, 'A Plague of fleas invaded our home! There were millions of them everywhere, inside and outside. We were at wit's end to know what to do. The fleas enjoyed our company immensely, we did not enjoy theirs one little bit.' The move to the farm was a large transition for Gladys and for the children, and it also made Royal's workload much heavier. Gladys had no laundry or bathroom facilities in the house, and Royal had to teach her how to keep food fresh there. 'I soon learned all the tricks of the trade' and settled down to become a real country house-wife, readily accepting the many changes that came into my life.' Gladys' conversion and her experiences on the farm make up a large portion of the autobiography. Gladys speaks of the growth of the church in Ipswich, and writes about the different buildings they had church in. She also writes about the changes that WWII brought. Her husband was on call 24 hours a day because he was in charge of the Lines of Communication at Amberley Air Base. Purchases were restricted, but their family did all right because of their food storage. Windows had to be blacked out, and when they heard the Air Raid Sirens Gladys and the children would run out into the bush. Gladys said of this time, 'I was always extremely worried over my husband as the Base was a place most likely to be bombed.' Gladys also recorded incidents where family members were blessed by the power of the priesthood. Once, their son Royal Jr. was kicked in the chest by a horse, and his heart stopped beating. After he was administered to, his heart began beating again. Another son had an accident while repairing a motor-bike and suffered severe third-degree burns over his body. After being given a priesthood blessing, he recovered and was able to serve a mission. Gladys also writes about the genealogy and temple work that she has done and about what her children have accomplished in their lives. She ends the autobiography by sharing her testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and expressing appreciation for being asked to send in her life story.
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